Iarna and the pages from the past.

(parts from an old and shattered diary)

...coming back - when we saw a body lying on the shore. We all thought that what ever used to live inside that body was long gone, so wounded and skinny it was, but then Ethan threw it on his horse and I thought I saw a facial expression, a smile. First thinking I was seeing things, nobody else didn't seem to notice anything, but then I saw its hand rising slowly and gently touchin' the horse and she smiled again. Now I was sure that she was a she and she was alive. - We agreed to take it to my place, a young girl couldn't be left with the unmarried and I am the only one married. My wife...

...wake up until three days later and my wife and I were scared that she would die without food. She tried to talk, but we couldn't understand and she wasn't awake long enough for us to see if she didn't have a tongue or did she talk a different language. Later we learned she didn't speak the same language at all...

...My goddess how fast learner that girl is! She talks big sentences already and she has eaten a lot. I mean a lot lot. Like a horse. Luckily the local priest is interested in her story otherwise we would have to throw her out having no money to support her. - And she really likes our horse, she sleeps in the village stables sometimes like a barbarian. The preacher is already teaching her some manners of our world. And she learns them quickly too. I hope she wouldn't take the lessons too seriously. - She has a funny way of speaking different from everybody and not the same as anybody. Like to me she is very polite like she is to the priest who teaches her, but to my wife she speaks like I guess she could talk to her mother. Yesterday she...

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...but I write it like this i-a-r-n-a. I just can't get my tongue to turn how she would like her name to be said. I think for now on she will be just Iarna. - It seems like she is trying to forget everything from her past. She doesn't talk about it at all and what I've found out asking the sailors is nothing more. Nobody knows where she comes from and what happened to her. All I know is she is getting more restless every day and we might have to get her a job soon...

...was coming back from the shore when I saw Iarna in the forest. She was glowing bright yellow light which was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I felt like rooted to the ground and couldn't take my eyes off of her. Then she suddenly formed a fireball out of her hands and the ball was coming towards me. I thought I was going to die to that very point but the ball hit behind me, a maneating-plant. Without her I would have died...

...I couldn't keep myself from asking her about the caster-situation although my wife advised me not to. She wants Iarna to be able to keep her secrets and said that our life is much easier if we don't know too much. Iarna didn't reply to me, she never does, she just said that the power comes from her anger naturally and she has a lot of it. I didn't want her to burn down our little cottage in her sleep so we tried to practice it together. She burned few of my trousers and my eyebrows being the target of her misdirected fire, but in time I think she will get the hang of it. She still makes mistakes and hits the wrong thing targeting the other but I'm proud of her like I would be of my own daughter learning to do all that on her own...

...after day she grew more restless and does longer walks in the forest. But what harm could there be in these woods? Like yesterday I saw only bunnies. - She is getting stronger too and doesn't look emanciated anymore. I should really get her a job, but the magical practice is keeping the food on the table. She is relly good at making money without really doing anything. I think the chest she bought to herself is full of coins. Don't know where she got them, but I don't want to know either. Maybe I'll ask around just a little bit. ..

...Iarna has dissappeared. She didn't come home yesterday and I'm very worried about her. Few of the town men are willing to help me find her, but a stranger isn't their first concern at this time of year. It is getting colder every day and I'm afraid she will freeze herself to death in the...

...Iarna was missing three days, when today a man knocked on our door. Or it wasn't a knock, more like he could have easily knocked over the door. I opened the door and this huge man with even huger armour walked in with Iarna on his arms. He was going to just leave her on the nearest bed, but Iarna had grabbed him by the breastplate. She was unconscious that is for sure, but she didn't let this man go...

...Iarna wasn't that badly injured, I guess that man had saved her life in a cave or something. The hole thing didn't get too clear to me. She has a reminder of that day for the rest of her life, a big scar on her face. After that night she just started to follow that armored man everywhere. He didn't stay in town for long, just to get his gear fixed. Couple of days later Iarna told us she is leaving with that scary man whose name I don't even know. She thanked us for taking care of her and teaching her the languge and such (you can still hear accent in her speach). As a thank you she asked me and my wife to come outside and there was a huge maneating-plant that even the men from the nearest city had been trying to catch! It was dead. We asked her how could she catch that all by herself, but she looked like she didn't know it was dangerous or bigger that the other maneating-plants around here. She said she had noticed that just after it was already dead. And then she left. We got a huge amount of money from the plant and we moved to a warmer area closer to my wife's mother. It's been weeks and I haven't heard anything from Iarna. Our horse Whity might have been even more sad than me and my wife about her leaving, but still I miss...

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...with the last breaths I take I still am wondering what happened to that Iarna-girl who stayed with us for almost a year. Once I heard that the awful man had made her to join a cult or a guild or something. I didn't like the sound of that. I know she can't have any money problems because she had a hunch for making it. She must seem strange to people who don't know her background and her little weirdnesses. Luckily she loves the animals, I guess there are always friends for her in the world if not from humankind. I hope she will be able to return to her home some day, to us.

Iarnas own diary:

I write this diary to you, Talaera, so you could get to know me better. If I seemed like a coldhearted monster sometimes I hope reading this will make you understand better why I am the way I am. I don't talk much about my past because it's too painfull but here it goes, I'll try my best because you deserve to know.

I was born far away from Candara or Kolydia in a land full of animals and jungle. The community was completely matriarchal, you know what that means, sweety? It means that the females of our culture lead and the male were more like slaves. Everything was how it should be, men are the weaker gender and fit for hard labour. Muscles eat space from brains. I hope I didn't teach you to hate them, it was not my intention. They are good for love, pleasure and heavy lifting. Just don't let them own you, you own them.

My mothers tongue is nothing like the language I've taught you to speak but when you were born it was already obvious that there's no way back home. My mother had enough prestige to give me a good education. I learnt how to read and write, hunt and bargain. They considered me being promising and when I was just a teenager they sent me to study at the capital and maybe become one of the head matriarch's ladies in waiting.

At that point I already considered the possibility of me never encountering my parents again so I'd said farewell to them properly. The ship was bigger than I've ever seen here, I think our technology was more advanced. Shame I weren't to be an engineer or anything. We came across a whirlpool, maybe a magical phenomenom, because the next time I woke up I was in the Aslan Valley. That story you already know, how this kind woman and his husband took me under their roof and helped me.

One day I was training my freshly discovered magical talent, the same you have, and I got careless and fearless. I went into a cave that had very little space to cast magic or to retreat. The kobolds I was fighting got me, they hit me in the head and just before I lost my consciousness I saw a man appearing from the shadows and bashing one of them with his shield. Last thing I heard was the dying croaks of kobolds.

Again I woke up in the little cottage clinging on my saviours breastplate. The scar that has slowly started to fade can still be found from the corner of my eye, it was a close call. This man intrigued me, I had never seen a man to be so confident. I felt like possessed and I had to follow him. He would take me to adventures I've never imagined and I gave him my heart like a horny teenaged boy.

You know by now how Armistan is like. I don't really think he is a bad man but he doesn't seem to care what ways to use to get to the point he desires. For a short period of time he desired me. I think he liked the way I was; I was raised to love my body and show it - first it was tough for me to learn that it wasn't proper to show your breast, such narrow-minded people! - and to him I was humble. He was like nothing I'd ever seen and that blinded me. Nevertheless, I don't regret that time with Armistan. In some way I will always love him.

He introduced me to some nice people, the guild Apatia. To join I had to sign some papers and I was too ashamed to admit I couldn't read the characters of their alphabet. A thing that the good people in Aslan never accured to teach me. I liked Apatia from the beginning, they were all nice to me and didn't react too much on my odd accent. I got to spend time in the stables with the horses and other animals that came to me. I trained one crow to be a messenger and I owe my life to it.

I gathered enough money to rent an apartment from the city of Varanas and before I even noticed it was crowded with wounded animals. I sometimes paid the nextdoor neighbour girl to take care of them when I was travelling. I had great desire to help people and for that I decided to set up few mental asylums with the cooperation of some small convents. One of those convents you were born in.

Everything was peaceful for a while but then one day Armistan was gone. No note, no nothing. I had some contacts and I started a pursuit. I was afraid he was taken by force even though there were no indications of that. When I finally found him, after months of searching, he had found another woman on a continent called Kolydia. Disappointed and hurt I begun my journey back to Varanas.

I was riding alone when the Zurhidons attacked me. They took me to a campside where there were other prisoners too. No food, no sanitary and horrors I don't wish to reminisce. They wanted to know more about the guild and about magical artifacts. I didn't know much about them but they didn't believe me nor care, they just wanted to torture me. That's what happens when you let men think they are capable of anything. One day I saw a crow wander in the air around the campside and I recognized it right away. A cellmate of mine had a piece of paper and a pen and he knew how to write and I was able to get the crow to carry a message back to the castle. Meine got my message and with all the anger he had for the Zurhies he came to my rescue and destroyed the camp. Unfortunately my cellmate had already passed away by then.

Meine had such a different vibe than Armistan. He was gentle and fragile and I wanted to save him and heal him like he'd done for me. Problem was that he was married and I had the uttermost respect for Andraliel. Things were complicated and I think Meine had no doubt about my feelings towards him. The marriage of Andraliel and Meine was breaking apart and I gathered all my patience just to wait for the right time. In this time I started to study the art of alphabets with the help of Ishren and Marian.

Few months after the Zurhies, I noticed I was pregnant. I was very sick all the time and I had many complications. I asked Meine to take a look with his healing hands and he told me that I was carrying twins. Few weeks before the delivery I said to Ishren that I was going to do a last inspection trip to the asylums but I knew the time was at hand. With the help of some nuns I gave birth to a beautiful babygirl, you, and a weak deformed boy. In my culture it's considered that the first years of a child are too dangerous to live so we have a powerful growth potion we give to a newborn baby. That's what I gave to you and that's why you don't celebrate your birthdays for age but just for the reason of being. The boy was weak and his time was clearly limited so I left him to die with the nuns. No use would've come from a sick baby and I was too ill to take care of it anyway. Just to be sure I left the nuns a bottle of the growth potion and told them to let me know if it was going to be a living being.

So yes, you had a brother. But it didn't even have a name. For you, I gave the name Talaera, like the goddess of the sun in my homeland.

You and I came back to the castle and life settled in. Those were lovely times. I had help taking care of you and I didn't have to meddle with all the schemes they had going on. Only one thing made me busy and that was the ghost of the castle, Jedoniah. What I've gathered, he was stuck in time and not really dead. I was eager to help him get back in his time and when I learnt to read I read the book that was written by a women the ghost kept talking about. With a bit more research I was able to recreate the magic that was needed for time warp. It just didn't go as planed and I was stuck in the limbo. For days, months, years I just spinned with a horrible speed in a neverending spiral of time. The other ghosts of time kept appearing with their transparent bodies and they yelled all the time. So did I. When I got accustomed to it I was able to focus on coming back. It was hard and took all my powers and I crashed through the ceiling and through a table. For a while I just laid there and tried to focus my eyes on the hole I had made on the roof. I was in luck, it wasn't a quiet day at the guild and the head guard heard me.

I'm so sorry I was away and I will try to make up for it. I had lot of time to think what is important and what's not. I think I've changed and for the good. All of my love is just for you, my darling, from now on and I wont waste my time on relationsips or plans that wont lead anywhere. I'm all yours and I promise to protect you from any harm and teach you to know more about the fire inside you.